Ikon retains Myer
Ikon has retained the $50m+ account for Myer, Mumbrella can reveal.
The move saw the media agency hang onto the account – key to its Melbourne operation – after the battle went down to a two-way fight with PHD.
The decision comes days after Myer called a creative pitch which will see Badjar Ogilvy attempt to defend the lucrative retail account.
“We can confirm Ikon have been successful in retaining the media buying contract”, a Myer spokeswoman told Mumbrella. “We look forward to continuing to work with them.”
The win sees history repeating itself for new Ikon CEO James Greet. Days after he walked in the door to run Mindshare in 2011, the agency won Unilever, a victory which was a defining one for the agency’s fortunes.
The victory will also come as a relief to the STW-owned agency which has been through a period of turmoil since the abrupt dismissal of boss Dan Johns in March.
Tim Burrowes and Nic Christensen
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Well done guys, a great win for a great agency. Awesome leadership by Trudi getting the business through a challenging period. Only up from here for Ikon.
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Well done Trudi and the team in Melbourne. You worked very hard to get this over the line.
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Awesome work, from what I hear you guys gave it 120% through 2013!
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…if there was ever an account you wanted to lose the minute you walked in the door it would be this one. How can such an account ever turn a profit???
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Great news and a well deserved win by Ikon. Trudi and her team worked bloody hard and congratulations to them all. They’re a great bunch and I’m sure under Trudi’s guiding hand, will give Myer their usual 120%.
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Well done Ikon Melb!!!! Testament to the agency
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A well deserved win by one of Melbourne’s nicest agencies!
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Congrat’s – you’ve retained the poisoned chalice.
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Awesome news – Well done Trudi and the team at Ikon!! Well deserved…
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I think we need to look at the situation here. Myer calls a pitch through a Strategic Marketing Management Consultant who invites five agencies to participate, that have key strengths in Data, Trading, Client Service, Strategy, Leadership plus inviting Ikon as the incumbent.
The Strategic Marketing Management Consultant then delivers the RFS, which includes unreasonable commercial demands and one by one the agencies determine certain conditions are unreasonable and drop off. – Congratulations to all of them all for making a sensible decision and dropping to their knees just because a client wants them to.
The real question should be how did it get to this point?
Surely Strategic Marketing Management Consultant are paid a fee to drive a FAIR outcome for the client, the media agency and media vendors, not just beat up the media agency, who then in turn has to then make these promises a reality and in turn the media vendors are the ones who pay the price. It seems that there was very little in theway of Strategic Marketing Management Consultancy and it was more around who would accept the least favourable terms and try and run the account with the minimal resourcing.
Ultimately they are left with one agency and no vailble alternatives and Ikon had to make a tough decision, withdraw like everyone else and lay off a heap of people and possibly close their Melbourne office, or suck it up and try and make it work becuase they have been forced into this situation.
It will be interesting to see what happens next time… It looks like Myer have very little in the way of choice aside from taking it in house. It is highly doubtful that with the cost of staff, software and research they would be able to make it work for the price they are paying Ikon.
This may actually give Ikon Melbourne longevity in the fact that the shortlist for Myer’s next review probably got even shorter.
Should we be asking some tough questions of Strategic Marketing Management Consultancies moving forward?
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sour Grapes?
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Ditto Surely & Steven Bradbury.
They’ve managed to retain MYER but let’s see how they plan to retain their staff seeing how it’s a revolving door at the moment in Melbourne. Winning a client that an agency could not profit from will make it even harder for management to hire extra resource. The consequence? The bottom feeders are expected to work hard/long hours under constant pressure and given the nature of retail – expect the trading team to always deliver on unrealistic promises.
Wonder how far the pants were dropped to retain this client and kuddos for the other media agencies on drawling the line.
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